True Threats and the Limits of First Amendment Protection heritage.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heritage.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited nonsensical and irrelevant
ad hominem attacks to be both spoken on the floor of the House and to be entered into the permanent congressional record. Sadly, her invitation was eagerly accepted. Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., called President Trump “a white supremacist president,” and “white supremacist-in-chief,” while Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called him “racist-in-chief.”
How did we get to this disgraceful state of affairs? The answer goes back to 1942.
Walter Chaplinsky was a Jehovah’s Witness street preacher holding forth in downtown Rochester, New Hampshire. His message for the day was a general screed against organized religion. As the streets were blocked and the turmoil grew, authorities arrived to restore order. At this point, Chaplinsky turned his ire to the town marshal saying, “You are a G-d d–ned racketeer,” and “a d–ned fascist.”